How can I not like that band, when the main guy is also in a band called Wolf Parade? He has all my chief interests covered. Speaking of the first: it’s only 6:00 and already the sun has gone down behind the roof of the house across the street. Barely–the house still has a sort of halo over it, what a good house, the lady always sweeps out front–but in another two minutes my apartment is going to turn sad and gray and I’ll start noticing the carpet again.
I have a Monet sort of apartment (that’s a Clueless reference for any of you youngsters out there: go rent it!): it looks great from a distance and weird up close, if by a distance we mean all flooded with beachy sunlight, and by up close we mean how it looks on foggy days, rainy days, cloudy days, early in the morning, late in the evening, or at night.
But what doesn’t look better decked out in glittery motes? The rows of books look suitably nerdy, not dusty. The duvet looks electric pink satin superpoof, not sadly behaired and beflecked. The rug (the rug goes over the carpet; the carpet is unspeakable) looks almost Persian. Even the pets look better in the sun, mostly because they are likely to be asleep instead of mewling, grimacing, scratching, biting, barking, or washing in despicable places. Even I look better: hello, tan illusion! Hello, summertime feet!
Now the sun is definitely down as far as I’m concerned. Foolish romantic people from other parts of the city may still be getting off the train to watch the great egg yolk plop into the sea, but they had better turn around and go home again. They always forget about the wind. It’s 50 mph! It will practically blow away the egg, never mind your dermis. Sometimes I feel there is a cord, with one end tied around the sun and the other end tied around my mood. Not that I can’t cope with the fog and rain, because that can be interesting, but I like to take a bright view. Or rather, I don’t naturally take a bright view, and the sun touching my books and my pets and the little drawings by my niece and my might-as-well-be-niece and my collection of wolf miniatures (wolf parade!) and all the rest reminds me that such a view is possible, and just as good as any other view, and just as true, by drat!
There is one thing in my apartment that looks better in the gloom. It’s an old framed wood print of my mom’s. The image is of a man so sad he can’t open his eyes. He is holding his wife’s hand but turned away from her. Her face is buried in her arms. Above them is printed this poem in dark, irregular block letters:
Westron wind when wilt thou blow,
The smalle rain downe can rain.
Christ! If my love were in my armes,
And I in my bed againe.
16th C, Anonymous
